A Cross-sectional Study to Find Out the Duration of Sleep and Associated Disorder among Practicing Advocates in Madurai District, Tamilnadu

Background: Hypertension is a condition in which blood vessels have persistently raised blood pressure (ie) when systolic blood pressure is equal to or above 140 mmHg and/or a diastolic blood pressure equal to or above 90 mmHg. Hypertension is a major global public health issue. The theme of world health day 2013 was the need to control raised blood pressure (hypertension) as a "silent killer, global public health crisis". The slogan for the campaign was "Healthy Heart Beat, Healthy Blood Pressure”. Due to this disorder many advocate professionals are having sleep disorders hence this study was undertaken. Result: 116(38.67%) participants had less than 6 hours of night sleep and 184(61.33%) participants had equal to or more than 6 hours of night sleep. Among participants with night sleep less than 6 hours, a majority of 97(83.62%) were found to be hypertensive’s whereas only 26(14.13%) participants with night sleep equal to or more than 6 hours were hypertensive’s. The above difference of observation was found to be statistically significant (p=0.00). The odds ratio is 31.02, which indicates that individuals with less than 6 hour of sleep had 31 times greater odds of developing hypertension as compared to individuals who have night sleep more than 6 hours duration. Summary and conclusion: Practicing advocates have a significant amount of sleep disorder hence they have to an active role in life style modification to rectify their sleep disorder.